Stephen Tual of Ethereum has confirmed speculation about the soon to be 'launch' of the project leading to the controversial third party traded 'Ethercoin' to skyrocket in price.

Frontier launch

On their official blog, Stephen Tual, CCO of Ethereum confirmed speculation that the international project would 'launch' stating that “We are only days away from launching ‘Frontier.’” He goes in some depth as to what to expect and where to get the information you need.

Tual also explained that as far as the 'launch' goes:

“There will be no countdown – Ethereum is not something that’s centrally ‘launched,’ but instead emerges from consensus. Users will have to voluntarily download and run a specific version of the software, then manually generate and load the Genesis block to join the official project’s network.”

Within a matter of hours the price of Ethercoin skyrocketed, from US$2.3 to around US$5 per Ether. As of time of writing, it has snapped back down to US$2.7.

Third party Ether

It is important for investors to know that Ethercoin is a third party maintained Ether exchange, backed by what its developers claim is a large amount of Ether purchased during the IPO. Developers launched Ethercoin to allow trading of the asset and, of course, make some money on the way up. However, Ethercoin is as centralized as any other exchange and there is no guarantee that its developers will make due on their promise to deliver the Ether.

The initial Ether IPO price was around US$0.40 per Ether back in July 2014, which has since jumped in price more than 10 fold to date. Those that bought Ether during their IPO can learn more about how to cash it in or use it after launch here.

As CoinTelegraph reported July 20, Ethereum “will go down in history as having been one of the most successful crowdfunded projects hands down, having raised over US$18 million in September 2014 … it sits in third place as having raised the most money among crowdfunded projects, ever.”

Its first release, Frontier, will be command line heavy and best suited for developer cowboys willing to risk their coins in this new wild west of decentralized blockchain computing. Investors, developers and miners are advised to do their research before making haste decisions.